UFC Pittsburgh: Rockhold vs Branch Free Betting Picks

Last week UFC 215 was a strange one with many underdogs getting the wins. I didn’t have a great night from my picks, but I did add a big late bet on RDA, which helped make it a profitable night.

This Saturday the UFC heads to Pittsburgh for a Fight Night card that actually features a lot of fun fights. Luke Rockhold is finally back in action and takes on the ex WSOF champ who won his UFC debut, David Branch. There is one other fight on this card that I absolutely love from a betting perspective and that will be the only fight I break down below because that’s where the vast majority of my betting money will be going this Saturday.

Luke Rockhold vs David Branch

I still firmly believe that Luke Rockhold is the best fighter in the UFC’s middleweight division. He got a little cocky against Michael Bisping and got caught not giving any respect to the power of a fellow high quality middleweight. He won’t make the same mistake twice.

David Branch got a big win over Krzysztof Jotko in his UFC debut. He was able to control the prospect and win a relatively boring fight, but in a five round battle with Rockhold he won’t be able to dictate the pace and I fully expect him to be outclassed by Rockhold in every aspect of the game.

Branch was the WSOF middleweight champion and he hasn’t lost a fight since losing to Anthony Johnson way back in 2012 so he won’t be an easy out for Rockhold, but the lack of high end punching power really limits his paths to victory against Luke. Branch has only one knockout in his current 11 fight winning streak and I don’t give him any chance of winning this fight by submission or decision.

I don’t love the odds on Rockhold against a guy in Branch who knows how to get wins, but I do think Luke will be better everywhere and Branch has very limited paths to victory so even at odds of 1.22 I still think Rockhold is a decent play.

Anthony Hamilton vs Daniel Spitz

This is the fight that I’m most looking at from a betting perspective and I’m definitely going to have a very large bet on this fight, with more units than normal.

Daniel Spitz simply is not a UFC calibre fighter. He’s actually really bad and this is a complete fade bet on him. He got absolutely torched by Mark Godbeer in his UFC debut and the fact that he somehow stayed in the fight for all three rounds did not impress me at all because he gassed out and the only thing he showed was the ability to take a few shots on the feet, while backing away.

Spitz was 4-0 heading into the UFC, but his wins were over absolutely awful opposition. His one win over a fighter who could be considered somewhat of a challenge lasted all of 4 seconds when his opponent stepped on his foot while throwing a punch and rolled his knee resulting in a TKO by injury. His fight before that was against Wesley “Cabbage” Correira who is just an old punching bag at this point in his career and Spitz didn’t even finish or really even hurt Cabbage who generally got KO’d in his career and had only fought sparsely since 2008.

I would literally be betting anyone in the UFC against Daniel Spitz and the fact that it’s Anthony Hamilton does worry me a little bit because of his propensity to get submitted, which is literally Spitz’s only path to victory in this fight, but Hamilton’s submission losses have been to far higher level opponents (Oliynyk and Ngannou), so I’m not too worried.

I expect Hamilton to either take Spitz down with ease and ground and pound his way to a victory or simply to just KO him on the feet quickly. Either way, Hamilton is getting this win.